Out of Touch
by Kount Xero
Summary: Rogue leaves Westchester to go back to her home, to find out what her name was and so recover a piece of herself. She picks up a hitch-hiker: Gambit, stranded on the side of the road. (A short ficlet, post-series. Part of the "Untouchable" series of fics.)
1. Prologue (To All Good Night)

" _ **Out of Touch"**_

 _Prologue: This is the fifth entry of my "Untouchable" series. It is a piece of Rogue's past, and a small road trip story that explores the relationship between Rogue and Gambit. The reading order of the series that it belongs to is: Touch, The Rest of the World is Noise, Mouvement, The Dividing Line and this. I have made one minor adjustment to the canon of X-Men: Evolution, and it's a simple one. In "Self-Possessed", Mystique tells Rogue that she adopted her when she was four. I shifted this by a few years, not by much, and it won't be explicitly stated. Enjoy, and if you do (or don't), a review would be much appreciated. The chapter titles are the titles of Rabbit Junk songs._

 _Rated M for some swearing, some offensive language, and suggestive themes, as always, in one chapter._

 **Prologue**

 **(To All Good Night)**

She remembered, very faintly, that saying good night was important. Not just to have said it, not just to bid each other farewell until the morning, but to kneel down and pray the Lord her soul to keep. As she opened the door leading into the garage, she wondered: who would keep all the souls she had stolen, the contained little existences she reaped with a little touch?

The door closed behind her. She stood in the dark, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The key in the palm of her gloved hand belonged to one of the many vehicles filling up the spacious garage. Jean's Blazer. Logan's bikes and legendary, classic Mustang. The modified humvee that was the X-Van. The Professor's black Lincoln. Kitty's Volkswagen, bright yellow.

The one she was after was an imitation Shelby Cobra, red with white rally stripes. Convertible. Trashed at least three times, but sitting there, waiting to be picked up just the same. She moved in between the vehicles, her boots tapping on the concrete ground; the green, hooded greatcoat was sweeping the side doors as she went. The duffel bag slung over her shoulder, containing a spare clothes, felt like a hammer ready to strike a church bell by coming into contact with something solid.

She made it to the car. She tossed her bag in the back seat. She got in and stuck the key into the ignition.

"I figured you'd at least say goodbye."

Rogue spun around, fists ready. She saw two red dots, glowing, in the far corner of the garage - the ruby quartz lenses that kept his powers in check.

"Jesus Christ..." she breathed, "Don't scare me like that."

"Sorry. Not my intention."

"Seriously, Scott... ya coulda killed me 'fore Ah even went!"

"Why slip out?"

Rogue averted her gaze. All she could see was the faint shapes of the vehicles around her, and she knew that he could see everything perfectly.

"Ah don't wanna say goodbye." She said, "It's too much. It's like Ah'm gonna leave for good. So just... pretend Ah was goin' out for a drive."

His footsteps shuffled in the dark, and the red dots that she knew were his eyes drew closer. When he stopped, she could vaguely make out the features of his face. He stood, half a step away, a world away, a universe away.

"I wasn't going to say goodbye." He said, "I was just gonna ask if you could get some milk while you're out. We're running low."

Rogue didn't know what to feel. Her own feelings, despite the fact that she had spent some time with them, were still new to her. She didn't have names for most of them, and didn't know what to call what was inside her now. Welling up, swelling, but not overwhelming; simple, painful, but joyful at the same time.

"We're always runnin low..." she managed.

"Exactly why you shouldn't forget it, don't you think?"

Scott walked around his car and got to the gate controls. He pressed the button, and with a thick whirring sound, the garage door rose, inviting in the night lights of the driveway. Rogue hesitated, but as the cold air flooded the garage, she turned the key. She started the car. The headlights blinded her, just for a second, just enough to miss him coming around to the driver's side. He leaned on the door, a small half-smile on his face.

"Be careful out there." He said, "Don't pick up any hitch-hikers."

Rogue took a moment. A flash of memory reminded her of a college girl, who had gotten stranded when the shuttles had stopped running. She had been hitch-hiking on the side of the road, under heavy snow. Backpack, a solid but inadequate coat covering her. Shaking. They had picked her up. The conversation had been pleasant enough, that was until she had noticed Scott's ruby quartz glasses. Scott had used the eye condition excuse he always had, but Rogue could see that she wasn't buying it. The girl had been silent after that, and had even thanked them for picking her up as she got out.

It wasn't what she had said or done, but rather the way she had clammed up, retreated into the backseat, stared out the window (and occasionally, down to the door handle) with a look that Rogue knew to mean she was trying to decide if she could jump out.

"You're never gonna let me live that one down, are ya?" Rogue asked.

"Not in your life."

"Fine. But ya gotta get ta give."

"Oh?"

Her fingers curled around the back of his neck and he smiled as she pulled him in and pressed her lips against his. She was soft and warm, he was steadfast and reciprocating.

She felt a shiver course through her, spreading, swimming through her veins. Weeks. It had been weeks since had felt him here, held him here, weeks since she had savored him. Her hands cupped his cheeks, curled slightly at the tips, as if to pull him in further. Breathing through her nose, she tickled him ever-so-slightly.

His grayscale thoughts rushed into her mind, but this time, she felt that they weren't on the surface, but buried underneath the simple pleasure of sharing a kiss.

 _...and what if you never come back?_

As the kiss lingered, his lips started to shake. His skin was growing colder, his movements restrained. One of his hands flexed and gripped the side door tightly. Rogue withdrew. The little voice inside her head, now that of her own, was screaming bloody murder at her, for not holding on for one more second, one more minute... one more lifetime.

"Oh my God, Scott..." Rogue went up on one knee to level herself with him. Her gloved hands went to his neck, to check his pulse. It was racing. "Are you okay..? Ah'm sorry, Ah just-"

"Don't be." He said, trying to keep his voice and breathing even, "I'm still here. See? No harm done."

"Ah'm so sorry... Ah got carried away, Ah should've been more careful..."

Scott managed a smile to hide his clenched teeth. For her sake.

"Safe journey." He said.

He leaned over and landed a light peck on the top of her head, sending a flash of awareness that read like a medical report to her. He was barely standing, but standing enough, he hoped.

He just hoped his legs wouldn't give in before she was out of sight.

"Ah'm comin back." She said, "And when Ah do, Ah'm gonna have a name."

"For some reason, I'm betting on Kate." He said.

Rogue couldn't help but smile. She put the car in gear, prompting Scott to take two steps back. She moved out of the garage and into the driveway without another word and pushed the button to put the top of the car up.

 _There were times when I wanted to call you that, just to cheer you up a bit, but I didn't, because I can't fill that empty space,_ Scott-by-Rogue offered, _it'd be like pouring salt into the wound._

Inside, she knew that an angel was not like her, and she was not like an angel, but maybe the girl she was going to find used to be, once upon a time.

She stopped before the gates. With a metallic creak, they parted. The top of the car clacked as it met the windshield.

 _...to all good night,_ she thought, and pulled out of the Institute.


	2. The Beating Track

" _ **Out of Touch"**_

 **Chapter 1  
"Beating Track"**

There was a TV behind the counter, hanging from its own slot on the corner, tuned to CNN. The droning of news reports flooded the interior of the convenience store, echoing between the coolers, racks of chocolate, marshmallows and all other kinds of snacks, and the far wall exhibit of supposedly important cultural trinkets. There was a small cluster of Davy Crockett hats, she had noticed – a common item in these kinds of places, nothing special. She wondered how Scott would look with them.

"Will that be all?" the owner asked. He was an overweight man with red cheeks and a pleasant demeanor – she had caught him checking her out, but her discomfort was balanced by how very discreetly (she might even say politely) he was doing it.

" _...Carol Danvers, former Colonel and fighter pilot in the United States Air Force, has made a statement for the first time since her ousting as a mutant two weeks ago. She had refused to comment after she had been dishonorably discharged, a silence that she kept until today. Miss Danvers, also commonly known by her callsign, Miss Marvel, has been seen in Caldecott County, Mississippi, and in answer to our questions, claimed that her discharging was motivated by the new brand of racism. The term..."_

Rogue's ears perked at the mention of her intended destination, taking her attention away from the age-old question of whether or not to buy the cupcakes. She decided not to, remembering that she had enough junk food to feed three already on the counter. She recalled being the little Rogue back in Caldecott, stealing chips and jerky whenever she could, and then throwing herself a little feast in a corner somewhere.

 _This must be what being homesick feels like... except I don't feel much of anything._

There was nobody but the Rogue in her head, and just a hint of Scott – but his faintness, balanced by his vivid presence, made Rogue think it was because of the reality of him, not his echo.

It made her smile, this warmth that came with the thoughts of him.

"Ah am not buyin' the cupcakes." She said.

"Not very good anyway." The owner said and began to add up the prices. The TV noise faded in once again.

" _...the Mutant Registration Act already being debated in the Senate, Danvers' ousting is also viewed as an indication that Senator Robert Kelly's anti-mutant stance might also represent the viewpoint of the United States Government as a whole."_

"That'll be 25.43." the owner said. As Rogue fumbled for her wallet, he sighed, "If she was doin' her job, I don't see no reason to make her stop doin' it."

Rogue froze, her wallet halfway out of the back pocket of her jeans.

"Y'know," he continued, stuffing Rogue's loot in nylon bags, "My cousin's daughter is a mutant. She don't do much, she can shape wood, that's it. Makes wood carvings, y'know, animals and such. Had to learn how to do it like us folks just to sell 'em. Now, it ain't fair to those that gotta work for it, but this is America. If you got it, you're the man. She shouldn't have to keep it a secret."

Rogue slowly took out two 20 dollar bills and put them on the counter.

"Keep the change." She said. She took the three bags and raised a hand to shut him up before he could protest, "It ain't much but... just keep it."

 _I get the feeling the world needs more people like you._

"I won't tell nobody." He said, giving her a wink, "Godspeed."

"Thanks."

Rogue stepped outside, somewhat comforted, yet still lost. It was that late night hour, the darkness weighing heavily, reminding her that there was still quite some distance to cross. She got in and started the car.

* * *

The echoes hadn't been cleansed entirely, that much Rogue knew – they would never completely disappear. Whatever Emma Frost and the Professor had done together, the Professor had continued after she and Scott had been re-instated into the X-Men. Daily telepathic therapy sessions and mental probes had silenced the voices, at least. It had even curbed some of the involuntary habits of the people she carried in her head. Tics and small details about how they did everyday things – righty or lefty, how to hold a pencil, from which side you began to draw round letters... through the absence of these, she had learned a couple of things about herself. She was ambidexterous, explaining how her muscle memory allowed both sides write with the same efficiency. She brushed her hair behind her ear as a gesture of nervousness, not to entice as some did, or to appear coy.

For the first few weeks, she had struggled with learning all over again what her body seemed to still know to do somehow. She could discern whether or not whatever she was doing was her own, or someone else's, too. Every time she saw something familiar, a trick she did with a playing card, for instance, she'd recognize it as not her own.

In her mind, with the Professor's encouragement, she had separated everything into Rogue and Not-Rogue. Rogue was good. Rogue was supposed-to-be. Not-Rogue was someone else.

Scott had pointed out to her that she was trivializing her echoes.

 _Like making fun of your own disability in order to look past it. To remind yourself that this is not who you are._ This _doesn't define you._

* * *

The road was going by, a blur in the background, clashing with the strange, stuttering electronics of glitch IDM issuing from the car's speakers. The car handled well, better than she expected: having after-echoes sometimes had its perks. She was glad for it, too.

Rogue didn't have a driver's license and couldn't get one on account of being a non-entity where the system was concerned. Mystique's forged records had been exposed easily by Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., whom had been trying to find out if other mutant children had been passed around. It was a painfully simple rut: no SSN, no prospects.

But a lot of the now-behaving friends in her head knew a lot of things about cars. She could put one together from scratch. She just wasn't legally allowed to drive it.

 _I'm not legally allowed to carry an X-gene either._

" _This doesn't define you."_

 _Doesn't it? For all your well-meaning, Scott, you're missing the point. I love you for it. It's so ideal when you say it that I almost believe it myself. But no. Every night when I lie next to you, every night when I thank whatever God is listening for that kiss you always save for last, every time someone forgets how thin our walls can be, every time I wake up from a guilt-ridden dream about you, not next to me but with me, under me, around me, inside me... I know that it does._

 _But you tell me it doesn't and sometimes, you make me believe. You make me feel like I'm not untouchable._

A figure waving in the middle of the road slowed her down. A man, young, athletic build. Green trench coat, ruffled, chestnut hair. One hand on a shiny Suzuki, grunge white. The fingers of the other hand curled up in the universal sign for hitch-hiking.

It was only when she got close enough to see his red, preternaturally glowing eyes that Rogue felt something begin to smolder inside her.

Rogue came to a stop right next to him.

 _Gambit._

As Rogue sat there, frozen, hands on the wheel and by God she didn't dare let go, he approached to the passenger's side, and froze himself. For a few moments, there was nothing but a silent, bitter staring contest.

"Den dis be ma lucky dey." Gambit said, breaking it "Hello, Rogue."

Rogue didn't say anything.

"Didn' expect t' run into you here. Figgered no-one'd be passin anytime soon."

"Right." Rogue said, "It's just a coincidence."

" _Oui._ A pleasant one."

"So what's really goin on now?" Rogue said, "What're you after?"

"A ride."

"What about _that_?" Rogue asked, cocking her head to the bike.

"De bike broke down." He said.

"Ya mean, your bike?"

"It iz now."

Rogue raised an eyebrow.

"Finders keepers, _cheré._ " Gambit said with a smile.

"Shoulda known... didn't check the tank, didja?"

"Guilty as charged." He said, raising his hands in mock surrender, "Mebbe a fine Southern belle like yoself could show some generosity to dis here poor man, gi'e 'im a lift, _non_?"

"Ya don't waste no time."

Rogue unlocked the passenger side door, eliciting a self-assured smirk from him.

"You're just lucky Ah'm in a good mood, swamp rat!"

"Somethin' I can improve, I'm sure." Gambit replied. He grabbed a gray duffel bag from the back of the motorcycle and retrieved his bo staff. He circled around the car and got in. Rogue waited for him to toss his luggage to the back.

"Ya won' regret this, chere."

"Yeah, sure, whatever. Ah don't know where you're goin, but Ah'm headed to Caldecott."

Gambit smiled and buckled his seat belt. Silence. Rogue glared at him, and found his mischevious glare unnerving.

"Well?" she asked.

"Drive, _ma belle_. Dat's where I'm goin."

* * *

The road passed on by, all blurred shapes and once-visible, mundanely beautiful vistas around them as Rogue stuck to the GPS. Every once in a while, her cell phone would blurt out that she needed to stick to the highway in perfect monotone - a good mesh with the industrial music still playing in the background, well into the twelve-hour playlist.

Both of these sounds, combined with the wind in her ear, did not make it harder to hear Gambit.

He had started to talk her ear off about this-or-that, none of which she had paid any kind of attention to. Yet, somehow, they were penetrating through the noise shield. They were stories of the bayou, the Thieves' Guild, old wives' tales and little bedtime anecdotes about the boogeyman he had been told as a child. From then on, it had been learning to pick pockets, Artful Dodger-style. The old ways were the best.

What frustrated Rogue was that she knew all of it already. She remembered the jacket rigged with bells, learning to lift wallets from it, and the bruises on her back ( _his back, it was his back, I am not him_...)

She knew that if she focused a bit, she could dredge up memories even he himself had forgotten, all transferred with a single touch. She considered telling him to shut up, but then she would have to put up with a silent mass in the passenger seat.

In any case, she knew that it was a scam he was working. An angle.

 _That's all I am to him, after all._

"...but a car thief need big city t' work, so I-"

"Speakin'a cars, ever been pushed out of one?"

"Many times."

"And don't get no thoughts 'bout stealin this one. It ain't mine."

"'f it waz, dat'd make it sweeter, _cheré_."

Rogue huffed noncommittally.

"Anyway, we're gonna have ta stop soon. Ah've been goin for a while now. Ah need ta sleep."

"I can take over, 'f you wish."

"In your dreams."

" _As_ you wish." Gambit said with a nod.

"Soon as we hit a rest stop, a motel, somethin with a bed in it..."

There was a moment's silence.

"Ya stayed in dose kindsa places a lot, didn' you?" Gambit asked. His voice was different. Rogue recalled that tone – she had heard it when he had said what he really felt about his father.

"Yeah." Rogue said, "Ah've seen mah share."

"Ya liked it?"

"Excuse me?"

"Motels'n such."

"Does anyone?"

"You're _not_ anyone."

The road was becoming an indistinct stretch of asphalt. Whatever was playing in the background, she noticed, was now a jumble of noise; perfectly harmonious elements were starting to drift away from one another. The vocals sounded like they were recorded with the mic in the studio, but with the singer participating from two blocks away.

 _What's with him?_

 _Maybe he wants to make a point,_ Scott-by-Rogue offered, _or maybe he's just genuinely curious._

"Ah liked it much as anyone can." Rogue blurted out, and regretted it an instant later. She knew that she couldn't take it back. She knew what he'd ask.

Right on cue:

"Why?"

"Because of reasons, okay? Now shut up, Ah'm tryna see where we are."

"Middle 'a nowhere." Gambit said as he lit up a cigarette, "In de heart of America."

Rogue didn't say anything.

* * *

It took her another hour to locate a truck stop. There was a motel across the road, a single-story stretch of rooms arranged in a u-shape, with a spacious parking lot to accommodate their normal clientelle. Rogue parked the car and got out without a word. Gambit followed. She retrieved the small duffel bag from the back seat and looked around for where the management was.

Gambit was already halfway there, his bag and the bo staff in hand.

* * *

Under the dim light of the exposed lightbulb holding on for dear life to the metal lamp overhead was a reception desk, or rather, just a counter with a beat-up ledger on it. The manager, watching the constantly breaking news of the shocking discovery of another mutant, only started paying attention when Gambit said something to him in French.

The after-echo told Rogue that Gambit was asking for a free room for them both, and only one room.

"Get your own room, Remy." Rogue said, "Ah'm not stayin with you."

"Come now, _ma belle_ , dere's only so much a man can do!" Gambit said.

The manager pulled a drawer, and retrieved a key. He put it on the counter without breaking eye contact with the small TV set he had propped up on a stool.

Gambit took the key and turned around. Rogue dug into his jeans' pocket and retrieved her wallet.

"Best not t' bother de man." Gambit said, "He havin' a rough night."

"Ah said-"

"He not gon' give you 'nother room anyway." Gambit added with a smile, "De wey he eyed you jus' standin' dere... ya neva know who might drop in later for a chat."

Rogue shuddered.

"So ya told him you was mah... suitor."

Gambit nodded.

"So he gave de room. Dat's what he waz told t' do, after all."

Rogue raised an eyebrow and glared at him.

"I'll explain." Gambit said, and then, with mock reverence, showed her the door, "Ladies first."

Rogue rolled her eyes.

* * *

The room was one of those a dime a thousand rooms she had stayed in for one reason or another... some reasons being more pleasant than others in retrospect. To her surprise, it was a king bed, a considerate detail Gambit seemed to have paid attention to. A second later Rogue realized that it was mostly to avoid accidental contact and sighed.

She put her duffel bag on the armchair with the worn-out cover and slid off her coat. Underneath it, she was wearing several thin layers, leaving everything but her head covered. Gambit walked past her, his eyes scanning the room, doubtlessly for something that was worth something that wasn't nailed down. He then took off his trench coat and laid down on one of the beds. He crossed his legs and stretched.

"Dis'll do, _non_?"

"It's alright." Rogue said. She felt the road clinging to her skin it couldn't reach, the roots of her hair that it could, and something inside her that nothing could. In a moment of silence, staring at her coat draped over the armchair with the cheap but clean cover, Rogue was hit by the full force of where she was going, and why.

It came easily to others. The concept itself was so basic, so inherent to anyone and everyone that it seemed to actually think about it would make most of them forget simply by the strain trying to remember the first thing they ever knew in their lives. She glanced at Gambit, casually smoking a cigarette, red eyes nailed to the ceiling. Yes, it came so easily to others.

 _He had the luxury of hating his name, so he took a new one. Our mutant names are for one thing, but my mutant name is all I have._

 _...and I don't even remember who called me that first._

"Ya know, _chere,_ I used t' think dese places were better'n home."

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hmm. _Joi de vivre_ exists in a motel room _._ "

"Who'dya use that line on the first time?"

Pain crossed his face, only for an instant. Rogue felt as if she was nailed to where she's standing. Was it an act? Was it a feint?

"Dere no joy in life when ya runnin' from it." His eyes darted down and found hers, "Iz dere?"

"No. There's not."

"Afta a while, all dese places look de same."

"What's with you?"

"Not what, but who. n' de answer iz you, _ma belle_. Good company's alwayz a joy of life."

Rogue huffed in frustration.

"And ta think Ah ya had me goin for a minute... up yours, swamp rat. Ah'm gonna take a shower. If Ah see you anywhere near the bathroom, you'll wish you hadn't crawled outta ya momma's womb."

Rogue stormed off into the bathroom and shut the door. Gambit heard the lock engage. He put out his cigarette on the side of the bed stand and dropped the butt to where it was somebody's job to clean. He stared at the ceiling.

"Sometimes, Rogue." He said, "Jus' sometimes..."

* * *

The water was God. It carried that heavy feeling, as if each droplet tore a miniscule piece of the filter and bore that burden onto her, but the mere feeling of it running down her skin, in between her toes, white-washing the incredibly long monologue of Gambit and the road salt... if paradise was real, this would be it, Rogue thought.

One hand slid down her stomach. Nails bit into skin as her fingers curled.

Rogue looked down.

 _Oh so it_ was _me, after all._

She ignored it and poured half of the miniature shampoo bottle into her palm. As the delight of double-stimulation coursed through her, part of her mind wandered. There was nothing concrete for a while, just the strange, road-weary vibration between her legs, and stray images of Scott... of Caldecott, of stolen moments in bathrooms, trying to figure out how to make that maddening urge disappear... alienation from the concept: too much touching, too much skin, too much contact, but the need is always too much of the never enough.

 _In the bathroom so they won't hear, so they won't know what you've been... what I've been thinking about. I don't want to feel this, I never wanted to feel that hole inside me, the hole nothing can fill. Empty inside, but for a moment, just for a moment..._

The water cleansing her hair, cascading down onto her shoulders.

 _...just for a moment, I'm beautiful._

Fingertips trailing a well-traveled path.

Sudden stop.

 _No. Not with him there._

The memory of being made a tool for a thief surfaced. Rogue reached for the faucet valve and turned it to cold.

* * *

The dress rehearsal of shame – that was what she used to call it. The term, _walk of shame_ , would never apply to her because she would never walk in to walk out, so getting dressed after a shower was, for all intents and purposes, the dress rehearsal of shame. Every layer covering up one more deed, every inch of skin trapped underneath the fabric imprisoned after release.

Underwear first. Conceal the most obvious. Jeans. Socks and shoes, or in this case, boots. Long sleeve t-shirt. Sweater. Elbow-length gloves.

Completely covered. No evidence to be seen.

Rogue walked out of the bathroom, her dirty clothes in hand, the towel hanging from her neck.

The scene was... peculiar.

There Gambit was, his trench coat discarded, now wearing only a faded white t-shirt and gray sweatpants. On what he had made his bed now was what Rogue knew passed for a feast in these kinds of places: pizza. Cheap, borderline inedible pizza from a completely anonymous vendor. Rogue eyed the six pack of root beer waiting next to it.

"Not de feast I wuz lookin' for." Gambit said, "But, decent enough."

Rogue went to her duffel bag and fished out the nylon bag she had stored for clothes. She stuffed tomorrow's laundry in and closed the bag.

"Ah bet ya didn't tip the delivery boy."

"Harsh! Harsh'n untrue! I tipped _generously_."

"With someone else's cash."

"Not a perfect world, _cheré_. Shall we?"

Rogue thought about it.

Her stomach told her to stop thinking and to dig in.

* * *

The pizza was basic. Cheese, pepperoni, green bell peppers and olives. It was greasy as hell, enough for Rogue to slip off her gloves and dig in bare-handed. Doing anything without gloves on was a rare delight, and Gambit kept himself scarce, asked a few leading questions and let her carry the conversation. Much to her surprise, she was enjoying herself. Her body was relaxed, ready to slip into sleep whenever she pleased – another rarity. Tired from the road, happy to be on the road, and enjoying the gentle intonations of his rather tame Cajun-English, she just let it ride.

At one point, against her better judgment, Rogue picked up a third slice and asked:

"So how 'bout you? Come ta these places a lot?"

Gambit's face grew sullen as her teeth sunk into the pizza slice. He took a sip from his bottle of root beer.

"Ting 'bout a thief, _cheré,_ thief can steal _anywhere_. Problem iz, a thief can't steal somewhere for _long_ , lest he be noticed. Nobody misses _une piastre_ , see, but dey do miss when de numbers pile up."

Rogue swallowed. The pizza was growing tasteless.

"De house wuz de Guild House. No home. Ya seen what it wuz like."

Rogue nodded. Gambit's eyes, red, darted up and he looked her dead in the eye. Rogue had the feeling that what she was about to hear about carried weight.

Another sip. He was stalling for time, or building tension, she didn't know which.

"'sides, ya seen my memories. Dere nuttin' I can say now dat ya dunno already, _non_?"

Rouge huffed noncommittally. She didn't want to tell him that she didn't have his memories anymore, not if she didn't want to, nor anyone else's... save for one.

"So ya bounced." She said, "Town ta town, city ta city."

"'tis a vagrant's life for me." he smiled, "Some call it _wanderlust._ "

"So Ah've heard it said."

"You're de same... but you've changed."

The bottle froze on its way to Rogue's lips. She raised an eyebrow. Gambit seemed dead serious, something she had seen only once before. She took a sip, stalled for time, built tension, and swallowed slowly.

"How have Ah changed?" she asked.

"Dat raging fire in ya eyes, Rogue. It still dere, but it's... calmer. Like a candle flame. No rush."

"Maybe Ah just found a place to belong."

"You n' me? We neva belong, _ma belle_. 'coz dere's gotta be a reason why ya runnin t' Mississippi now, 'specially if ya belong somewheres."

Rogue looked away. There were still three slices of pizza left. She wasn't hungry anymore. She glanced at Gambit whom had just lit a cigarette and was smoking, seemingly without a worry in the world, his red eyes watching. Razor-sharp, studious, quite unlike the other pair of red eyes in her world.

"Ah gotta wash mah hands. You made the delicious mess, ya clean it up."

"A gentleman always does."

* * *

Rogue announce the bed non-negotiable - hers and hers alone. Gambit didn't protest, he didn't even haggle; he simply nodded and got comfortable on the armchair. He confiscated the bed covers, but seemed content with his choice. Rogue wasn't sure if he was being a gentleman or playing at being one. A part of her knew that he, too, must be tired, but all parts agreed that this did not mean he'd share a bed with her.

 _Even for the right reasons, what you did... the way you used me... I don't think we're getting past that._

Rogue settled in and tried to find a comfortable position. She shifted around, onto her back, onto her stomach, and finally settled on something completely in between. She flexed her muscles and relaxed, feeling the road roll off of her with every breath.

"Haven't answered my question." Gambit murmured in the dark, "Why go back dere?"

A car sped on by, outside.

"Mah auntie's there." Rogue replied, staring at the ceiling, "If she's even still alive... or still there."

"Why the visit?"

"What's your name, swamp rat?"

"Remy LeBeau. Some call me Gambit. Others have less flatterin' names."

"What's mine?"

"Rogue."

Rogue shook her head.

"Not mah mutant name. What's mah given name?"

"It's Rogue."

"Who did Ah used to be? What did they call me? Was Ah a, Ah dunno, a Mary, a Jane, a Grace, a Kate?"

"Why d'ya need it?"

"'cause the Rogue's anybody. Mah power is anybody's power. But whatever mah name is, that's only me."

Silence in the room.

"Well if it's any consolation, I think Rogue suits ya just fine." Gambit said.

Rogue closed her eyes.


	3. Broken Highways

" _ **Out of Touch"**_

 **Chapter 2  
"Broken Highways"**

The city gleamed in the distance, night lights making wonderfully nonsensical shapes across the dark outlines of buildings, all pixilated and disparate. Her own reflection in the glass, even in the total darkness of the room, was a ghost, floating in the night.

"It wasn't always like this, you know." he said. He was behind her, on the couch, with his shirt open, revealing his flesh. His eyes were glowing a dim red. "It won't always be like this."

"Ah don't know this place." She said, "Was Ah here once?"

"Maybe. Why don't you come here and find out?"

"Don't fuck with me." she said. The city was falling asleep. Some of its lights flickered and went out as she watched, "It's hard enough as it is."

She could hear it as he popped the button of his jeans open.

"What are you so afraid of?" he asked.

"Don't be that way." She replied, putting one hand on the glass, "This ain't what Ah wanted."

A low frump of clothes being discarded, behind her.

"Come on. Wasn't it?"

The sound of skin scraping against the fabric of the couch. The reflection in the window, red eyes and nudity, in the dark. She snuck a look, out of the corner of her eye. She shivered.

"Ah can't." She said, "So don't."

"You can do whatever you want to me. Everything is real here."

"It's not what's real."

"Touch me. Find out."

"Ah didn't bring you in here so's you could fuck me up, Scott."

Another building went dark. And another.

"Ah know what Ah want, and what Ah thought Ah could have... but it ain't enough. It ain't never enough, never gonna be."

She turned to him, to the glowing embers in his skull. Behind her, the lights were going out, one by one.

"Because Ah want you in ways that'd kill you."

"So maybe I'm better off dead."

She shook her head.

"No." she said, "But Ah know _Ah_ am."

The last of the lights went out suddenly, leaving only the red dots of his eyes, like cigarettes burning in the pitch-black of a sudden blackout.

* * *

Rogue woke up to the smell of cigarettes, sharp and distinct, mixing with the freezing cold winter-morning breeze rolling in through the window cracked open. Groggy, her eyelids refusing to part willingly, she glanced over her shoulder and saw Gambit, wrapped in his coat, smoking a cigarette. She knew that there was no sleep after that moment, so instead, she stretched, trying to get blood flowing. She sat up in the bed.

"What time is it?"

"Afternoon. Dat's all I know." Gambit said, exhaling a cloud of smoke, "Betta get dressed, _ma belle_. De road waits for no-one."

"Where'dya steal that one from?"

"No' dat kinda thief."

"Fine, don't tell me. Ah'm up anyway."

The moment she threw off the covers, Rogue shivered. The room had gotten considerably colder with Gambit keeping a window cracked open, enough that she wished she could stay bundled in the warmth of the bed sheets forever.

A brief flash and the dream ran through her mind. The darkness of the hotel room, the red eyes beckoning her closer, the warmth offered and the body presented.

Different from the red eyes watching her now, which were full of mischief and curiosity.

Rogue retrieved her road clothes from atop her duffel bag and marched over to the bathroom. She got dressed, one eye on the door handle and an ear to the room. Gambit didn't even breathe, far as she could hear.

 _You're being paranoid over nothing. Sure, he's an asshole, but he's no perv._

 _...in any case, he can look if he wants to. 'cause he can't touch. Nobody can._

The body of evidence in the hotel room, proof of existence. Proof of things she had no names for, of thoughts she still couldn't explore. Like the bathroom she was in, like many other bathrooms she had been in, replete with half-finished concepts and indistinct impressions.

She noticed that she hadn't had the dream in a while... not since the Professor had brought the echoes to heel.

 _But it's not my powers we're talking about, or who I am... I don't think he wants to talk at all this time around. It's the same, me and him, but it's different... why?_

 _Is it because of the kiss? Did I take too much from him?_

 _No. That can't be it._

 _I've kissed him dozens of times, touched him even more, he's not more than what he used to be in my head._

The room waiting outside the bathroom door was dead silent.

* * *

Gambit didn't comment when Rogue got out of the bathroom and grabbed her bag. He simply locked step and followed her. She was still a bit sluggish, her steps sweeping the cold concrete. She dropped the key off without a word, and kept her silence all the way to the car.

Then, they got in, she started it up, checked the GPS to make sure she wasn't headed the wrong way, and drove off. He cracked the passenger side window to smoke, smiled at the way it bothers her. Untouchable, not so much.

She dug into her mp3 player and picked an album. Her musical taste irritated him, he had to admit – having grown up around jazz and wonderful solo musicians, buskers and street virtuosos, the four-on-the-floor beats and the relentless, repetitive, synthetic nature of industrial music was like nails being raked across a chalkboard for him. So like her, he observed, to be drawn to the absolute certainty of rigid, formulaic songs.

He paid attention to the lyrics as he watched the scenery flow around them. Violence and bloodsoaked sex, the glorification of decadent fetish, fetishization of machine-like impulses. No stories to be found but the persona, always the persona, at the heart of the screaming breakdown of the world and the death of all things.

* * *

The interstate roads running through America were nothing but broken highways stretching on for miles and miles, into eternity, flanked left and right by variations of the same theme. A beautiful, endless wasteland. Nothing but empty space. The saving grace of the scenery outside his window was that the vast expanse of the continent waking up, carrying the appearance of an overexposed photo under the cold white light of a winter morning.

* * *

The closer they got, the more uncertain Rogue grew. She had let Gambit take the wheel after a while, but being in the passenger seat was no comfort. The music was indistinct now, pounding away relentlessly, reduced to nothing but dissonant noise that seemed to make no sense; reflecting the memories that she was trying to drag into sunlight as she sat in the passenger seat, watching the broken highways flow on by.

There were bits and pieces, small sensations that didn't seem to add up to much. Linoleum tiles. The smell of a kitchen, not in her home, but elsewhere – steamed vegetables. Signs that may have belonged to shops. Toys in her room, meant for a boy. The rough, sharp angles of the church pews. The dusty, wooden scent of the confessional booth.

 _Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It's been a week since my last confession._

She got glimpses of each piece, felt them expand, but therein was her confusion: were these really memories after the first hint, or was she imagining them, filling them with whatever she thought could have (or should have) happened? She remembered an anecdote, that her memories weren't the memories themselves, but the memory of remembering something for the first time. Did it go like that, she wondered - moments upon moments, all distorted by God-alone-knew-what?

Looking at the world outside the passenger side window now, Rogue could only see the things she didn't know and couldn't say.

* * *

She drifted off into an uneasy sleep, somewhere down the line. She didn't recall the dream when she woke up to the car coming to a halt, in the parking lot of a rest stop. Despite Gambit's courtesy, the car smelled like snow and cigarette smoke. She thought about snow shovels, and that it was wrong to do that with the boys. She wasn't no mine worker's daughter.

But how would anyone know?

* * *

Gambit had been hungry, out on the street, with no money and nowhere to go when he had first discovered that if he hit the right frequencies with his voice, whoever was listening did whatever he gently suggested that they do. It wasn't telepathy, but rather a case of "when you say it like _that..."_ His suggestions just found purchase because the timbre of his voice stimulated all the right centers of the brain.

Few knew about it, because he had discovered pretty early on that if his target knew his voice was charming, the trick didn't work. Women had taught him that.

To transition from hungry thief to Casanova, he had had to charm the owner of a deli out of house and home.

He was doing the same thing now to the Dunkin Donuts clerk who had pegged them for mutants the moment they had walked in, except this time, he was trying to to convince the man not to call whichever armed authority would arrive the fastest, and to just take their money and forget they were ever there.

Rogue, standing right behind him, hands in her coat pockets and looking annoyed, would never know how much he felt like he was back on that anonymous street in Louisiana.

It felt like going home, but he never said it and she never knew.

Once they had two large Styrofoam cups of coffee for each and a couple of donuts for good measure, Rogue took the wheel and put them back onto the path. The GPS showed that they were a couple of hours out.

Rogue didn't turn on the music. It had started to grate on her just a bit, having listened to her usual playlist for hours upon hours on end. In its place, she offered Gambit a chance to pick a station. Gambit fumbled with the radio, and stopped when he managed to pick up one that seemed to play, as Rogue noticed after the first twenty minutes, jazz tunes non-stop.

The tunes recalled some of the sensations from that morning, particularly the smell of spices, steamed vegetables, and swing jazz on full blast in the background, against a characteristic clanking of pots and pans.

A tattoo on a slender neck that felt warm and safe when she used to wrap her arms around it. _But what's it mean, Miss..._

No name. No face.

"Dat's more like it." He said as he lit up a cigarette, "De music of de spheres."

"You grew up around this, didn'tcha?"

"Didn't you?"

"Jazz was sinful." Rogue blurted out.

"Sez who?" Gambit countered with half-mocking offense.

The song changed. Rogue recognized the clarinet. A half-memory surfaced, the glossy surface of a vinyl record, the needle's approach to the grooves...

"Mah auntie." She said.

"Why's it sinful? 'cuz it's carefree?"

"Put it to ya this way, she bought me or maybe just brought me a Benny Goodman record once. Ah listened to that until it got worn out and didn't play no more."

"He'z good." Gambit smiled, "Master o' de clarinet."

"He's _white_." Rogue said, clacking her tongue, "That was the reason."

"So ya come from prejudice, _cheré,_ but ya ain't like dat yourself. Dat's improvement, _non_?"

 _Opportunity. Your choice,_ Scott-by-Rogue offered.

"You come from thieves and you're still one."

"Guilty as charged."

Rogue didn't say anything else.

* * *

Gambit kept her going with an endless stream of semi-related anecdotes that she half-listened to. She was busy keeping time with the GPS, counting down the miles as it repeated that she had this many left to go.

He kept talking, let his mouth do the work while he watched her. Green, sunken eyes focused on the road, on the eternity of it, the constant strip of asphalt coming in with no real end. The white streaks in her hair that added beauty, as gorgeous and defining as any mark on any skin. The Southern drawl, much more tame than what he was used to, much more New York in her now than Mississippi. The haphazard make-up, the clothes, the Old Spice aftershave that she was wearing like a perfume, alcoholic and sharp; the external elements that composed her like a song, a song he was listening to as she listened to him.

Oh, he knew that betrayal wasn't something she took kindly to. Despite what she had said back there, that he had been doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, he knew that she hadn't forgiven him. He didn't even know if she had it in her. Because yes, he had fucked her over, used her to use her powers, just like every other asshole had tried. He had known that the moment she had touched him, he had lost her, probably for good.

 _Probably for the best._

But this thought, just like every other thought there was, did nothing to curb the pleasure he took just from watching her, just from hearing her responses to his wild anecdotes.

* * *

Rogue thought of Scott as the GPS intoned that they had very little left to go. What was he doing, she wondered, right this second? Was he sitting in his room, waxing poetical in his head? The image brought a smile to her face. Gambit was going on about this and that in the background, creating split-second images in her head that she often commented on, just to hear her own voice every once in a while.

 _You are like an angel, Kate._

 _My name's not Kate... but maybe it is. Maybe there's a whole story that comes with it, a story you haven't even heard. Maybe Kate was somebody and meant something to someone. Maybe Kate knew what to say. Maybe Kate could kiss her boyfriend without freaking out about if she's gonna send him into a coma or not._

" _In five hundred feet, turn left."_

Evening was steadily progressing into night outside their small world in the car.

* * *

The scenery changed as the car moved through the highway and entered into Caldecott. The welcoming committee of gas stations, Taco Bells and Dunkin Donuts quickly gave way to high-rise buildings, their windows mostly dark; concrete and glass, extensions of air-con units mounted onto the sides of window frames. Gambit wound down and finally fell to silence as Rogue allowed her body to dictate her direction. She didn't know of any place, but could feel the pangs of hunger in the pit of her stomach, so she thought about food. Immediately, images of mixed dishes rushed out at her, but the more prominent ones, the ones she could taste, were not the steak and potatoes she adored with a passion.

Rogue thought of exotica. Gumbo. Jambalaya. Baked chicken. Novelty dishes of mix-and-match meats and vegetables – the last one felt like a warm meal at the end of a very hungry, very cold day.

"Cajun..."

"Yes?"

"Ah'm in the mood for somethin ya probably know how ta make."

"Honored. I know o' a few places in dis town."

"Ah'm guessin, Ah do too. So hold on, let's see if Ah can't find us a place to eat."

Rogue could hear jazz playing. She checked the radio to see which station it was tuned to.

The radio wasn't on.

Rogue clenched her teeth and steered.


	4. In Your Head Noone Can Hear You Scream

" _ **Out of Touch"**_

 **Chapter 3  
"In Your Head Noone Can Hear You Scream"**

It was called Halloway's Hat, a jazz club with a sadly empty live stage. The speakers distributed throughout the wood-paneled walls were merrily emitting soft jazz from a playlist. The tingling of ride cymbals and the gentle dance of the clarinet cut a swath through the crowd, all seated at round tables with navy blue tablecloths, served by waiters in zoot suits without jackets. A very helpful waitress took them to a corner table. Their corner was adorned by the portraits of Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie.

Rogue quickly picked the first thing that seemed to have a lot of everything in it. She was tired from the second day of the road, and from putting up with Gambit's seemingly unending chatter ("'coz de road ain' kind t' doze dat don' tell stories ta keep it comp'ny in de empty seasons.") She barely even saw the phone screen as she texted Scott that she was now in Caldecott.

The thought didn't completely register. She was thinking of New Orleans as the waitress took their order. She was thinking of Mardi Gras. She was thinking of Scott, of the bed they shared back at the Institute. She was thinking of Cody Rogers, of Mystique, of the ousting of Carol Danvers, of the embroidery on the napkins, on how the Dave Brubeck Quartet's _Take Five_ was as close as she had gotten to jazz in any classical sense, of how dark red nail polish that nobody could see on account of her gloves looked horrid on her skin, of how dirty she felt, of how good a shower would feel...

 _Is this what it's like to think? Is this what it's like to think my own thoughts?_

 _I never thought I'd miss the voices filling up the empty spaces._

A penny pinged on her plate. Rogue looked up from it to see Gambit, smiling that sly smile.

"Penny for ya thoughts, _cher_ _é_."

"Classic."

"Only if it works."

"Not the case."

"C'mon, _ma belle_ , what's a poor man like maself gotta do? See, dat's de beauty of ya Southern gals – ya mean streak run coast to coast, but ya always wonderful. An' not like e'ryone gets a chance t' treat such a beautiful one t' dinner."

"Stop it."

"I call it like I see it, Rogue."

"No. Ya don't. You're just doin the same ol' dance. This is throwaway for you. Day in the office."

"Harsh and untrue!"

"Look." Rogue sighed. Something about that sigh gave Gambit pause. "Ah'm not beautiful. Ah never was, and Ah know that." She paused, "But _he_... makes me feel like Ah shoulda been beautiful. Like Ah'll never be. Like Ah could be. And sometimes... like Ah _am_. All the people Ah touched, all those lives Ah lived... the lives Ah stole... he makes me feel like one of those lives was mine once. That Ah was beautiful, with all the things Ah should've had."

Gambit held his tongue. He had many retorts, his repertoire had dozens of comebacks just itching to be used, but he looked at her, and saw her hunger. She was _starving_. For openness, for honesty. For someone, maybe him, maybe the uptight Monsieur Summers, to not use her like they'd use a tool. Not treat her like she was her powers, to look beyond the clothes, the make-up, the attitude, the reluctance to touch, the distance and see what was waiting.

* * *

Their food arrived. Rogue didn't even see what it was. She didn't care. It had meat in it, some type of egg-like substance, grilled vegetables and a healthy, yet not dulling amount of spice. She began to eat, and the first bite told her that yes, she was hungry beyond the telling of it.

Gambit followed suit. For the first half, there was only the sound of a Benny Goodman song he couldn't quite recall the name of, the idle chatter of the people around them, and the clinking of the silverware. Gambit held his silence because he saw the girl he had taken out on a stroll through the Mardi Gras back in New Orleans. The girl whose conversation was as lively as it was captivating, even when just waxing bullshit on the mundane. The girl he had sat at a jazz club, not unlike this one, and had proceeded to use thereafter.

He could still, in the moments he cared to be what others always seemed to consider human, hear her voice: _You used me, just like everybody else._

 _You only know the half of it, Rogue,_ he had wanted to say, _because I won't tell you the rest of it._

"So don't tell me." She said, taking a bite. Gambit wondered if he had thought out loud for a fleeting second, "From you, it's just an empty compliment. Just words you'd say to anyone."

"One thief to 'nodder?"

Rogue nodded after a moment's hesitation.

"I'm sorry, _cheré_. Never meant t' use ya like dat. I jus' didn' think you'da helped me if I jus' asked."

Rogue burst out laughing. Gambit raised an eyebrow. The harder she laughed, the more disturbed he was. She laughed until tears glistened around her eyes. She then returned to her food, chuckling still, and made short work of it. Gambit didn't touch his plate again. His appetite had left the building.

When Rogue finished, she washed it down with a glass of hard cider, and leaned back. Her eyes stared into his, and her lips curled in a wicked smile.

"Liar." She said.

Gambit was about to respond when she continued.

"Didn't have ta be me. Jean's a telepath. The prof is too. They coulda done it. They coulda given ya back-up."

"I couldn' ask dem."

"Why not?"

"Dey wouldna helped."

"And why's that? Just 'cause you one of Magneto's acolytes?"

"Former."

"Takes one ta know one, don't it?"

Gambit's eyes flew wide open.

"That's right." Rogue said, nodding, "Ah was an acolyte when Ah first met 'em. Proud member of the Bayville Brotherhood. But the X-Men never stopped tryna get to me. Yes, Ah followed Scott in, but wouldn't change it either ways. Ya needed help, they coulda given it. So why me?"

"I..."

"'cause ya figured you could use me, and not let me know it. Sure, ya did it for good reasons - Ah ain't arguin with that. But there's no reason why you couldn'ta told me the straight in the box car. Ah still woulda helped. Ah still _did_. So that's why it had to be me. 'cause ya thought you could. Like everybody else."

Gambit was speechless. He knew that his mouth was hanging wide open as Rogue tapped a gentle beat on the backrest of her chair. _Minnie the Moocher,_ he recognized, but to the vocals, not any of the instruments. _Hei-di hei-di hei-di-ha..._

"So now's the part where ya fork over the cash ya lifted 'fore comin in here in the form of gettin the checque like the true gentleman that you ain't." Rogue said, "And before that, you gonna tell me _exactly_ what you're doin here."

"Why not jus' take it from me?"

"Ah don't want you in mah head."

Gambit's shoulders dropped. He tore his napkin from his neck and threw it onto the table. Rogue was unimpressed, still.

"Yes." He said, "Yes, you exactly righ', _cheré_. I tought it betta mebbe dat you didn' know nuttin' 'bout it. Mebbe if ya knew, ya wouldna helped dis Cajun."

"Still can't answer mah question."

"'cuz you, _ma belle_ , back den as it is now, you wuz already gon' away." He smiled slightly at the way she looked like she had just been struck. "I watch ya fo' some time. You was gonna split wi' de X-Men, or was thinkin' t'. Don' take nuttin t' be free, chere. I thought, mebbe, wen dat deal was over, I'da taken ya wi' me."

"Ah swear, you got a talent for not answerin no questions. Give it to me straight or you can hike it, Cajun."

"'coz ya ain' like de others." Gambit fished out his pack from his coat pocket and lit up a cigarette with the tip of his finger, "I look at you, I seez a rogue. I seez a wanderer. Ne'er a home, always de road. You was perfectly good in Westchester, an' here you are, havin' dinner wi' me."

"Ah got mah reasons."

"Which ya won' tell. Dat's fine. But if ya takin' me along, mebbe you oughta gimme a hint, non?"

"Gambit." Rogue said.

"Yes?"

"That's your hint. Now, get the checque. Ah'll be right back."

She stood up and left a very confused Gambit behind.

* * *

Rogue walked out of the front door and circled around back. She got to the kitchen exit.

She took a deep breath as half-forgotten, half-erased memories of her childhood flooded her.

She'd often find herself in this alley after sneaking out of her room, having been sent there without supper for asking too many questions. For asking where her mama was, when she was coming back. It hadn't been a conscious choice the first time – she had gone wherever the street seemed to be leading her, and that had landed her right where she was standing now, the kitchen exit of Halloway's Hat. She had sat down by the trash containers, holding her knees. Her ears had picked up the somewhat faint yet audible music then. She had listened intently, without really comprehending what those sounds were. There had been no music in her aunt's house, no TV, scant few books and little else. There had been a radio, but her aunt had an affinity for the Evangelists, particularly a man with a smooth voice, Father Stryker, and his teachings. The radio was off-limits for her, and the one time she had tried to find something else on, she had been rewarded with a very thin stick to the wrist.

Night after night, whenever she had escaped, she had come to the alley. At first it was just because that was the only place she knew – and since she knew it, she also knew the way back. She'd sit down in the same spot and listen. The music, the strange arrangement of sounds had seemed magical to her. She had liked the strange intangibility of it all – no matter how hard she listened, she could never quite catch the music. It was all scattered, syncopated rhythms and improvised, drawn-out passages; the energy of swing, the over-the-top bombast of the Big Bands.

It made her forget, every time, how hungry she was.

She'd hide whenever someone came out. A cook or a waiter, out for a smoke or just to take out the trash. It was easy to hide when you weren't confined to a house, she had discovered – her aunt had always found her the first try, no matter where she had hidden to escape punishment, the severest of which would come if she got close to the toys sitting on the living room carpet. Toys meant for a boy. But there was no boy, or had they just lost him?

One night, Rogue hadn't hidden very well, delirious with hunger and worn out from trying to keep up with whatever was playing (years later, she'd learn that it was a live band playing a rendition of Miles Davis' _"Spanish Key."_ ) A woman with boy-shirt hair and a thin, long cigarette between her fingers had stepped out of the doors and had seen her.

Rogue remembered that first encounter, where her eyes had made her heart stop.

"Hey, kid." She had said in between drags, "You lost?"

Rogue, too scared to speak, had shaken her head.

"Ya look hungry." She said, "Why don'tcha lemme finish this, give ya somethin ta eat?"

What was it that her aunt always told her to say to every single person that even acknowledged her existence?

"T-t-thank you, m-ma'am." Rogue had stammered out.

"Jesus Christ..."

Her name was Stella. She was a sous chef at Halloway's Hat, had a real knack for the Creole cuisine. She had been born in the New Orleans bayou, ran away to Caldecott in her early teens. She spoke French like nobody's business, and often made Rogue laugh by teaching her how to curse in that language. The others in the kitchen didn't mind the scruffy kid, so long as she followed by Stella's ground rules: don't touch anything. Don't eat anything that wasn't given to you. Don't bother the chefs or the waiters. Don't go out into the dining area.

Rogue had obeyed, word-for-word. She knew what happened when you broke the rules.

Stella had seen the marks on her arms and hands. She hadn't needed a story to understand why this girl was hanging around in the kitchen of a jazz club almost every night. Why she brought her fresh flowers she had undoubtedly plucked from some neighbor's garden. Why her dinner had to be whatever they could put together in the kitchen without tipping the boss off. How to hide her from her aunt if she came knocking, which she did, most every night she was there. The first time, Rogue remembered, had been the worst. It had been like getting caught with one hand in Satan's.

Rogue had known that Stella had seen her aunt slap the daylights out of her.

So she had devised a scheme: every night, when it was time for Rogue to go, she'd have a waiter take her to a familiar place. A butcher shop, a deli, whatever they had, who'd call her aunt and deliver Rogue to her, as if she had been there all night.

"Here's your rogue, Miss..." they'd say.

Stella had explained to Rogue that this would keep her aunt from looking for her in any one place and finding her. Rogue had laughed. Not like she would, and at the end of the day, it'd be another round of punishments no matter what. But still, what Stella had arranged for her had been the beginning of some of the happiest nights she had spent in Caldecott as a child.

Now, standing in front of the kitchen door, it was occurring to her that Stella might not even be there.

The kitchen door opened then.

* * *

She was older, as was Rogue, but Rogue couldn't help but notice the laugh lines around her lips, the circles around her eyes. The cigarette was thicker now, a different brand, and her boy-short hair had been shaved clean off to almost nothing.

Rogue found that she couldn't speak. Upon lighting her cigarette, Stella noticed her. It gave her pause, she held her breath for but a moment before exhaling and smiling wearily.

"It's you, isn't it?" she said, and then she smiled, "The Rogue."

What to say now? In Rogue's head, there was a hole where what she wanted to say should be. No other words to fill that space, no notions, no lifetimes and lifetimes upon experience to make other people's words come out of her mouth and let her get on.

Nothing but the Rogue.

"It's me." Rogue said.

"My, you've grown. And... changed. What happened to the skinny kid that I used to feed cocktail meals to?"

"Ah grew up."

"I can see that. You filled out nicely."

Silence.

"Ah like your hair. Ah mean... what you've done with it."

She ran a hand through her almost bare scalp.

"Not a pretty story, kid."

"What happened?"

Stella sighed. Rogue saw her exhale a thousand wounds with the smoke.

"They took me in for questioning when you guys went public. All they knew, they said, was you were from Caldecott, and that's it. Ya auntie pointed 'em in my direction." She took a drag from her cigarette, "Never liked me, that woman... anyway, 't was a weird coupla weeks."

Rogue felt like she had just gotten punched in the gut. She noticed that the pinky finger on Stella's left hand was bent to the side at the second knuckle. The remnant of a scar was peeking out of the landscape of short-cropped hair, right in the middle of her forehead.

"Not your fault, kiddo." Stella said, "Hey, don't matter. I never could hate my little Rogue, so nobody else gets to. Anyway, they shaved my head the first day. Liked it so much I decided to keep it that way. Even less hassle than my old style, has to be said."

"Stella, Ah..." Rogue felt a lump in her throat. "Ah'm sorry. Ah'm so sorry, Ah-"

"Ya didn't ask for it." Stella said, "Can't say I was surprised, though. I mean, there _had_ to be a reason why your auntie was so keen on the stick and not so much on the carrot."

"Ah don't think she knew."

"She might surprise you, that one." Stella stomped out her cigarette and lit another, "So what brings you back to Halloway after all this time? I mean I just assumed that you'da forgotten all about this place. About me."

"It's... kinda hard to explain. Did they tell ya what Ah could do?"

Stella nodded.

"The first time Ah touched this boy, by accident... Ah forgot everythin. Ah thought Ah was him. It passed, but when it did, Ah had no name. Ah had no childhood, just what happened after auntie'd given me to somebody else. It started to come back, bit by bit but... Ah mean Ah remember more now, almost everythin Ah can be rememberin –Ah remember you-... but somethin's missin."

"And that is..?"

"Mah name."

Silence lingered. Stella smoked calmly, sizing her up. _Whatever happened to that kid..?_

"Ah don't remember it, Stella. It's gone."

"What do people call ya by, then?"

"Rogue."

Stella burst out laughing. Her laughter, she noticed, choked by the amount she was smoking, was still as hearty, crystalline and beautiful as she remembered.

Rogue shifted her weight, unsure if the name just sucked or if Stella thought something-or-other of it.

"Ya didn't forget after all." Stella said with a weary smile, "Ya didn't forget."

Something in her voice broke Rogue's heart.

"I was the one who called you that." She said, "When your auntie first came 'round. It stuck... I'm..." she took a deep breath, swallowed, chuckled, "I'm glad. Sorry."

Rogue shook her head.

"Thing is..." Stella said, her face growing sullen, "I don't know ya name, either. Ya never told me. For all her talk of manners, ya auntie didn't teach ya to introduce yourself."

Rogue's heart sank. Now what? The clarity of Halloway's Hat was all that she had to go on. Dead ended, she had nowhere else to go. For a moment, she felt like that hungry kid again, hiding behind the dumpster.

"I know where ya auntie is, though." Stella said, smiling, "Still alive and kickin', after all these years. Got a pen?"

Rogue fished out her cell phone and opened up a blank message. She tapped down the address, thanking silently for the borrowed, lingering muscle memory of Kitty.

Stella stomped out her cigarette as Rogue slid her phone back into her pocket. They stood there, swing jazz emanating from the club, far and wee. Stella took the two steps down and drew Rogue in for a hug. Her arms were desperate, almost belonging to a belief that if she held on tight enough, she might take a piece of Rogue with her.

Her skin made contact with the smallest of exposed spots.

In a flash, Rogue learned everything about the other side of the alley.

Stella drew back, tears glistening in her eyes, as she looked into Rogue's eyes and saw her knowing. Stella's eyes were full of pleading, _please don't hate me for this, I did'nt know what else to do. Please._

* * *

 _Please don't hate me for feeling like you were the daughter I lost. Like you were my could have been... my should have been._

 _You're not her. I know you're not her. I am an adult. It was years ago. Before his drinking, before that punch, before this club took pity on me, 'cause I could only cook three dishes, and they felt sorry because of the black eye and the bruises and the gossip._

 _I know she's dead. I was there when she died. She leaked out of me, through that thing between my legs that made her possible. The Lord giveth, the Lord fucking taketh away. She was dead before she was ever born._

 _I know you're not her._

 _But when I saw you that night, old clothes and trembling lips, I couldn't help but think you might be. Might have been._

 _Because I had no daughter, and you looked like you had no mother. Perfect fit._

 _I cared about your laughter here, about you pissing off old Johnny 'cause he didn't like you arranging the tickets from the latest to the earliest._

 _You never asked me anything. Except for my hair. And the tattoo on my neck. You never asked me, so I never asked you. "What a rogue," Jane said once when you drew crosses on the tickets so that the customers would have thanked the Lord without even knowing it._

 _That's what you are – my little rogue._

 _I could've killed your auntie when she slapped the daylights out of you the first time she found you here. How dare she lay a hand on you? I'da cut her fucking hand off and fed it to her, one finger at a time, dipped in marinara sauce and on toothpicks, with her choice of two sides._

 _Because she had you. Sugar and spice and a bit of dressing._

 _I had no-one, and she had you, and all she did was to make you go hungry, drive you away, slap you around in front of everyone. Put the fear of God in you, but it'd turn to hatred of God in time, I knew. I had been there. Sitting in a pool of my own blood and what would have been –should have been, damn you, she should have been- my daughter made me believe in Him, and hate Him with everything of myself._

 _I don't want you to feel the same hate. God is love, they say. Let it be love, at least for you._

 _I couldn't keep you safe, but I could make sure you wouldn't be afraid to come here. So I made the system. Hid you everywhere, played hide-and-seek. Made Caldecott your playground. You were all around Caldecott all at once, and nobody knew you were here all the time, drawing twinkling stars on the menus, listening to Harry's lectures about syncopation and rag-time and learning how to curse in French._

 _I knew you'd grow up. I knew you'd go. I knew you'd forget me, forget this place, forget lecturing me about how cigarettes were bad for me because they gave you cancer, and nice people shouldn't get cancer._

 _Your auntie should get cancer. Maybe she will. Maybe she ought to._

 _And every night, when you left for some cover place around the time she'd come around to look for you, you went, thanking me, over and over again, like a sinner thanks his maker when she's forgiven. As if a simple kindness was the most precious thing in the world to you. Maybe it is. You knew her cruelty. You knew our kindness. You knew the difference._

 _And every night, I returned home, thanking the God I hated for another night. One more. One more. One more._

 _And then, no more._

 _You'll never know what it meant to me, because I'll never tell. It's a stranger's world, it's a stranger's thoughts. My burdens, not yours. You don't need it. It's you against the world now, against those who held me down when they shaved my head, those that starved me, those that beat me worse than he ever did, who threatened to break my fingers and did, who pulled my fingernails out one by one, who did everything they could to make sure I wasn't even human anymore._

 _It's you against all of them, and I can't make it harder for you._

 _I told them nothing. I told them nothing at all. They could've killed me or worse, but I wouldn't have said a damn thing to them, because the only thing about you that I knew, is something you will never know: I love you._

 _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for loving you because you left, like you would and just like her, you broke my heart._

 _And it wasn't even your fault._

* * *

"Chin up, Rogue." Stella said, her voice strained, "And hey, come by sometime, yeah? Be nice to make you a cocktail plate again."

She disappeared behind the kitchen door, leaving Rogue standing in the alley.


	5. Inside My House

" _ **Out of Touch"**_

 **Chapter 4  
"Inside My House"**

Gambit was leaning against the car, smoking a cigarette and twirling a fob watch in his free hand, performing small tricks with it. Rogue passed him by and got into the driver's seat. Gambit jumped in as she stuck the key in and turned the ignition. The car roared to life. Rogue buckled her seat belt, Gambit followed suit.

They sat quietly with the car running.

Rogue didn't know what to feel. The weight of that familiar uncertainty was heavy in her chest; it was a noose around her neck, choking her. She didn't even notice she was crying until Gambit uneasily shifting in the passenger seat showed her that her vision was getting blurred.

Love. So simple a word. It came easy to others, she had seen. Jean. Kitty. Jubilation. Rahne. All of them had grown up around this strange thing called love. They knew all about it. That was why nobody had given up – love. So much love in them, so much love around them...

But for her, for the Rogue, the girl without a name, love was something some people mentioned in church. Love was a crop stick to the palm. Love was letting toys gather dust on the living room carpet. Dim lights. Ominous portends preached by the radio. Hungry evenings. That was love.

But love had changed, she knew. It was jazz now, it was ruby quartz glasses. It was an H.R. Giger artbook given to her by someone who had thought it suitable because it was sterile, alien, dark and "icksome" by her account. She knew love now, she knew what it was.

What was forcing her tears was not something an echo had forced out of her but something dragged out into the open because of herself; the bare thought of having known a love as pure and damaged as Stella's, and having been robbed of it. The memory of happiness, the frozen moments of joy, jazz and spices in her mind – they had all been buried for years, interred underneath everything else.

Some said that they regretted not having more memories in such places. Rogue scoffed at the idea.

She was glad to have the memories at all.

* * *

Rogue put the car in drive and drove into the city. Gambit was exceptionally silent, just watching the buildings go by with a small smile on his face. Rogue navigated by the GPS embedded into the dashboard, only taking care to watch the road out of necessity. Something inside her, reeling in the dangling threads of mixed emotions, was driving her forwards.

She knew where the monster lived now.

"Ya awful quiet, _cher_ _é_."

Rogue didn't say anything. Turn left. Five blocks or so, and it'd be a stretch of road until the outskirts, the not-quite-suburbs and not-quite-bayous. Caught in between.

"We're not too far away." Rogue said, easing her grip on the wheel some.

"Penny for ya-"

"If you say that one more time, Ah swear Ah'll kick you out of this car. While Ah'm drivin."

Gambit put his hands up.

"Fair, fair." He said, "Ya got what ya came for?"

"What?"

"De club. You were lookin' f'r somethin', _non_?"

"Why the interest, Cajun?"

"Do I need me an excuse?"

"You? Yes. Ya want somethin' from me, but Ah dunno what that is. All Ah know is that, if ya wanna have a shot at gettin' it, ya better tell me. All of it, no tricks."

"As de lady wishes... I want in."

Rogue almost swerved off the road. She managed to get a grip on her direction and shook her head.

"Come again?"

"I want in, cheré. Into de X-Men. Mebbe dey can use a card-smart fella like me, too."

"Are ya for real?" Rogue asked, "That why you were headed to Missi-fuckin-Sippi?"

"I wuz comin' t' Westchester when de bike broke down."

"You said-"

"I lied. Jus' a lil' lie, no harm. Ya wouldna heard me out otherwise."

Rogue ground her teeth and stomped on the brakes. The car lurched forward at first, and then, settled.

"Get out." Rogue said.

"Rogue..."

"No. Ah'm tired of you usin me. It's the same old shtick with you – _but you wouldna done dis, wouldna said dat._ Maybe Ah would, if you'da considered bein honest for once! You're just tryna do the same thing, this time to get into a place you ain't even fit to be in. And Ah am _through_ bein used."

"Rogue, you de only one I've had any decent contact wi'! Who else is dis Cajun gon ask mebbe, if he lucky, t' vouch for him? Who? _Monsieur_ Summers? Ya brother? Who else?"

"Don't mean you get ta turn it into a scheme." Rogue said, her voice cold.

"Touch me, den. Touch me, and see why. Just one touch."

"No!"

Gambit reached out and tapped her on the cheek. A flash and a surge of emotions flooded Rogue – concern. Apprehension. Anger. Buried frustration. Repressed insecurity. Pride. A jacket with bells all over it. Being lost and unfound. Weariness. Weariness of the life that had been led, so far, with the gears stuck in cruise control. Sense of purpose. Need to drift. Need for an anchor, so he could be allowed to drift. Need for a home for home's sake.

Rogue exhaled, and her lungs informed her that she had been holding her breath for quite some time. She glared daggers at Gambit, who looked, oddly enough, absolutely lost. The moment lingered, growing uneasy. Finally, Rogue took the wheel and began to drive again without a word.

* * *

Her aunt's house turned out to be half an hour away from the club. The area was one that seemed like an extension of the city center long forgotten, having never become a proper new city, but having failed to stay a traditional town. It would've been the suburbs, except the buildings around them seemed more like abandoned, Civil War-era homes. Old picket fences, big gardens with patches of cracked soil and very weak grass, decaying houses made primarily of wood, smelling of the damp Mississippi air, stale cigarette smoke and old age.

The scent of her childhood, the stink of long Marlboro's. All-American, her aunt used to say.

 _Much as I wish they'd choked you out by now, I don't. I can't. I need you to be alive, you miserable bitch. Alive enough to tell me who I am._

It didn't take her long to find the house. It was as she remembered. Waist-high picket fence. Stone walkway up to the door. Wild weeds grown in the garden. Rogue pulled up by the garden gate, stopped the car and stepped out, followed by Gambit.

"You ain't comin with me." Rogue said, "Somethin Ah gotta do in there."

Gambit fished out his cigarette pack.

"Go, Rogue." He said, "Do your thing."

* * *

Rogue crossed the garden, and thought the distance from the garden gate to the door was a lot shorter than she remembered. The three steps leading to the front door, the second one creaking under the weight of her combat boots as it often did, were a lot less steep.

Standing in front of the door, Rogue hesitated. Memories, some whole, some in pieces, were prodding her to do various things. Barge in and beat the shit out of her, beat the truth out of her. Go back, don't ask, don't know. Try to be nice. Try to be violent. Try to be everything. Touch her and take the knowledge from her.

Rogue settled for a knock.

"Who's it?" a hoarse voice resounded.

"It's me." Rogue said, "...auntie."

Silence.

 _If you turn me down now, I swear to God I'll-_

"Door's open."

* * *

Rogue couldn't help but notice the contrast between her and the house. The house was unchanged for the most part: there were new cracks she didn't remember, the varnish had lost its luster further, forming spots on the wooden surfaces, giving them the appearance of being stricken with a plague. The smell of worn wood, spices, and the tang of thick, heavy moisture hung in the air, mingling with that of high-tar cigarettes and tea. The cross-stitch rendition of a windmill, framed, was new, and it hung lopsided on the wall the kitchen counter was integrated into.

Her aunt was wearing a floral patterned dress, a rather conservative cut, and the various bracelets she had on both arms clinked every time she tapped the excess of her cigarette onto an ashtray. Rogue recalled that ashtray – porcelain, always around. The pit where the corpses of her poison gathered.

"Are ya jus' gonna stand there, child?" her aunt asked.

Her voice wasn't older. Rogue figured that once you got to a certain age, parts of you rapidly aged, but other parts didn't. Her face was more heavily lined than what little Rogue remembered, her cheeks were sagging slightly. Her skin was wrinkled and pale, or rather, was just paler, with small spots decorating them. Skeletal fingers holding the cigarette, nails filed into daggers, painted, as always, red.

"Either come in, or get out."

Rogue moved quickly, crossing the threshold and into the kitchen. The floorboards creaked with every step as she circled the table and drew up the chair to sit across from her. She sat down. It took her a moment to notice that she was sitting all prim and proper; back straight, legs together and hands on her knees.

Silence. There was only the dull, steady ticking of the wall clock, and soft, yet strained, exhalations. Her aunt stomped the cigarette out and immediately lit another one, accompanied by a sip of tea.

"Cat got your tongue?" she asked Rogue.

Rogue's eyes shot up to meet orbs of pure blue; sharp and full of resentment.

"Ah know it's sudden..." Rogue started, but was put off by a chuckle.

"Don't beat 'round the bush. What the hell d'ya want, child?"

"Ah was tryna be polite."

Her aunt laughed, only to be chocked a ragged cough halfway through.

"Ah'm old." She said, "Ah ain't got no time fo' polite. Say whatchu say, an' stop wastin' mah time."

Rogue felt anger clawing at her throat. The house was unchanged for the most part, and though she had decayed, neither had her aunt.

"Fine." Rogue said, "Not like you'd know anythin' decent if it punched ya in the face..."

"Be polite, now. Remember who yer talkin' to."

"Oh, Ah _do_. For once, Ah do: the woman who gave me up to the first one that walked in the door with an offer. That is who Ah'm talkin to."

"Where'dya get that fancy accent 'nyway?" her aunt asked, smiling, "Sound like you wasn't even from these parts to begin with."

"Oh, fu-"

"Language, child."

Rogue took a deep breath.

"Tell me why." she said.

"'cause one's always gotta respect they elders."

"No. Not that. Tell me why ya gave me up."

"Why not?"

Rogue's anger fizzled out the moment the words spilled from her aunt's mouth.

"More trouble'n you're worth. Always was. Ah knew from the day ya mama told me what was what that you'd just be somethin' that'd eat mah life away."

"Such as it was..." Rogue mumbled.

"Maybe it wasn't no city life, and maybe it wasn't all that fancy, but it was _mah_ life. She just dropped ya off, no proper explanation, no nothin'. 's her you gotta ask that question ta, not me."

"And when Irene came, ya didn't even think, did you? Ya just passed me on like some souvenir ya couldn't be asked ta keep!"

"Did ya know that the house you standin' in burned down, straight to the ground, seven years back? Why d'you think it's still here? The money was good, it'd set me up for life, never have no want for nothin'."

"So ya didn't just hand me over, you sold me."

"They offered."

Rogue felt like she had just been punched in the gut. The statement twisted around itself, and transformed into the opposite: _she didn't sell me. They bought me. Mystique bought me._

"How much was Ah worth?" Rogue asked, "Just curious."

"Ah forget. More'n it'd be now, though, tell ya that much."

"Ah know ya never wanted me here." Rogue said, "God knows Ah know you never thought Ah was more than'n an animal..."

"Can ya blame me?" her aunt said, "Radio was still good back then, we knew. Ah might look like Ah ain't nothin' but a silly old woman somewhere Mississippi, but Ah knew. Hell, jus' the other day, did'ya hear? Carol Danvers."

Rogue shook her head.

"Air Force, a real American, who'd do it better than men out there, fight like 'em, fight with 'em... turns out, she just a cheat. She a... mistake, who didn't deserve to even look at Uncle Sam directly. Just 'nother mutie, pretendin' to be a woman."

Rogue knew the name, of course. She remembered the man at the register, and the TV in the background. A naturally gifted pilot whom had saved the lives of her squadron in Syria three years prior, performing a maneuver that was attributed, until now, to pure luck or sheer insanity. Until her revelation, kids in Caldecott, especially the girls, wanted to be her, and the boys wanted to bring her down a notch.

And now? From what she had seen, Rogue could tell that nobody wanted to know Carol Danvers existed at all.

"Better be a faggot'n a mutie, I'd say." She said with a chuckle. Rogue felt her blood run cold, "'least she'd still be half-human."

Rogue decided to ignore the comment. Her aunt smiled.

"What, Ah get ta you? Good. Means there's somethin' in there left of what you was supposed to be, then."

"That's not what Ah came here for."

"What didja c'mere for, child? Need money or somethin'? That freak chaser outside, he not carin' 'nough for ya?"

"Ah just wanna know one thing." Rogue said, biting back the words threatening to come out, "Ah'll leave after that. Ya won't see me again."

"Not soon enough. What is it that ya wanna know?"

"What's mah name?"

Her aunt froze. Her brow furrowed as she seized her nephew up, her face baring to Rogue that she was trying to decide if she was for real.

"Come again?"

"What's mah name, auntie..? What did mah mama name me?"

"Are ya mockin' me?" her aunt asked, "Ya come down here to make fun of an old woman, that it?"

"Ah don't know!" Rogue said, "Ah forgot what it was, Ah can't remember!"

"How can someone forget they own name?"

"Ya know all mutants can do stuff, right?"

"Ah'm not ignorant, child."

"The first time Ah did... what Ah can do, it was erased. Gone."

"What do... folks call ya by, then?"

"They call me the Rogue."

Her aunt burst out laughing, a hoarse cackle.

"Well, that's... Ah never expected to be laughin at whatever y'had to say, Ah'll give ya that."

"Please..." Rogue said, "You're the only one who knows."

"Why do you wanna know it? The Rogue's just fine."

"Please..."

Her aunt put her cigarette out.

"One thing." She said, "You tell me one thing, and Ah'll tell ya what you wanna know."

Rogue nodded. _Anything._

"What is it that you can do?"

Rogue hesitated. There was every chance that the answer would make her clam up, and she'd lose her chance of not stooping to her level to learn her own name. Then again, from what she remembered, her aunt could budge at the strangest of times.

"When Ah touch someone, human or no, when Ah make skin contact... when they're mutants, Ah absorb their abilities for a while. Ah can do what they can do while it lasts. But that's not all. With them, with humans too, Ah... also take their memories." Rogue swallowed, "Everythin they lived, Ah live. What they're thinkin when Ah touch them..."

Her aunt was silent.

"Ah didn't know." Rogue continued, "The first time Ah touched someone, just to push him away, ta make him stop botherin me, Ah... Ah forgot who Ah was. Ah never remembered after that."

"But ya remembered the Rogue."

"Only much later. They called me that at first 'cause Ah'd _gone_ rogue is all." She sighed, "And Ah looked, and Ah looked, but there's no records anywhere. Not of mah mama, not of me. Ah can't even get a goddamn driver's license, 'cause Ah don't even exist."

"You wouldn't be nowhere, child." Her aunt said, "You was born outta wedlock."

Rogue's eyes grew wide.

"But. Fair's fair." Her aunt said, lighting up another cigarette, "Lucky. Ya mama told me ya name 'fore she left and left you with me. Well... she told me what she'd name ya if she could."

" _What..._ is... it?" Rogue asked, her voice shaking.

"Anna Marie."

It sank in, but Rogue missed it for a few moments. To her, her aunt had just said something incomprehensible. Gibberish. It didn't mean anything at all, except... it meant everything.

"Anna Marie..." Rogue said, "Ah'm Anna Marie."

"For better or worse."

"Thank you." Rogue said. Every muscle in her body relaxed. Her legs were jelly. Relief washed over her in waves, as well as the creeping sensation that this would take some getting used to – having a name.

"Before ya go," her aunt said, "If ya can do what you said... why didn'tcha just touch me and take it?"

Rogue exhaled. She stood up.

"Ah didn't wanna have to."

"Don't say Ah didn't do nothing for ya."

Rogue headed to the door. Her aunt's voice stopped her.

"Keep ya promises, child. Don't come back here again."

"Ah got what Ah came for. Goodbye, auntie."

* * *

Outside, Gambit was leaning against the car, smoking a cigarette and twirling a fob watch with his spare hand. He was switching fingers mid-twirl, wrapping the chain around two, releasing one, throwing it and catching it.

"Everythin' alright, _cheré_?" Gambit asked as Rogue approached. He slipped the pocket watch into his coat's pocket. Rogue just nodded and got to his side. She leaned against the car next to him. As Gambit continued down his cigarette, she fished out her cellphone and tapped out a message: **ANNA MARIE.**

Her thumb hovered over the 'send' button.

 _No. Not like this._

Rogue slid the phone back into her pocket.

"Where to, den?" Gambit asked, "Wanna hit the joints first mebbe?"

"Where're you headed?"

"Gambit got nuttin' in dis here state, ya know dat."

Rogue smiled.

"If all ya got was that watch, Ah _see_ that."

"Harsh, _ma belle,_ harsh."

"Ah won't vouch for you." Rogue said, "Ah don't want that over my head."

Gambit's face grew sullen – a strange sight for her. She had seen him in many moods, feigned and genuine, but serious was new.

"I understand." Gambit said, "Well den, _cheré,_ dis Cajun will be on his wey."

"Ah'll introduce you to the Prof." Rogue said. She almost smiled at his complete surprise, the way his jaw dropped was priceless, "But that ain't no guarantee of anythin, just so ya know. It's on you. Make it or break it, swamp rat."

"Why change ya mind? Not dat I'm complainin'..."

Rogue smirked at him.

"I'm in a good mood," she said, "Now get in."

Gambit obeyed without a word.

* * *

 _Author's Note: Rogue's aunt keeps the tradition of horrible parents in the X-Verse. This subject was mostly avoided in Evo. I think the only bad parent we saw was Tabitha's dad (Mystique doesn't count!) The comics had worse examples. This particular "parent" is actually half-derived from the Rogue comic miniseries in which she returns home to learn about her mother, and her aunt - her aunt was presented as a cantankerous, bitter woman who was mostly jealous of her sister, and when she was saddled with the out-of-wedlock nephew, she took it out on her. This is not the whole backstory here, but I do like incorporating elements from the comic books (such as Remy's "magic voice") into these stories to sort of expand on the Evo-verse._

 _I didn't deliberately write Rogue's aunt as a racist, geneticist and homophobe rolled into one, not really: she just came out as a one-shot character who was so seeped into her own prejudices and hatred that given the opportunity to opine about anything, she'd choose that route. The William Stryker radio sermons mentioned earlier in the story do play a part. Stryker would've been in his early twenties when Rogue was a child, and already hell-bent on the things a character like his can be hell-bent on._

 _One final note before the finisher: the dialects. Gambit was very difficult to nail down, I had to go over his lines a couple of times to make sure I was doing it right. I wanted his speech to be distinctive, but coherent and understandable. Where the aunt was concerned, I had no choice but to make it a variation on Rogue's accent, only slightly thicker to better reflect how she had been affected by her life in New York. Thing is, Meghan Black does a very good job of Rogue in Evo, but her accent is always slippery, moving in and out of the semi-Southern drawl and regular English. This is not an error, not really: Rogue's speech patterns would've been altered by the echoes, modifying the accent that she used to have with traces of others. Like when Rogue uses a Russian word during her therapy session with Emma Frost: the way she talks is different, because it's brought on by herself PLUS the echoes she harbors._

 _I tried to keep everything as grounded in canon as possible, and that's sorta funny, given that I've ventured so far from where the series ended, but if I've erred, I apologize. Also, any grammatical errors that may have slipped by, I also apologize for that._

 _Now let's get to the final chapter for a different dynamic._


	6. Epilogue (Devotee)

" _ **Out of Touch"**_

 **Epilogue**

 **(Devotee)**

"You're gonna catch your death."

Scott turned to see Jean, her black, melton wool trenchcoat protecting her from the worst of it, with the aid of her light red beanie and pink gloves. He knew that the gloves were cream-colored, and reminded himself of that. She was holding two porcelain cups, both light red, currently emitting steam. He took one and took a sip. It burned his tongue.

She lingered, quietly sipping Hank McCoy's trademark hot chocolate. If the expression, to die for, had any connotation at all, it'd be for this, and yet, nobody knew what he was putting into it.

Scott shivered. Winters in Westchester were cold. High moisture, temperatures dropping, snow showers that had him using his optic blast to shovel snow from the driveway, often twice a day. Right now, there was only the biting wind. Scott knew that Drake was ecstatic, but Amara had asked Storm in a manner that swayed between polite and demanding, to adjust it a little bit. Storm's response of being a weather-witch and not a thermostat had put paid to that pretty quickly.

"It's nice to have some company." Jean said.

"They're too scared to go back." Scott replied, not taking his eyes off the Mansion gates, "They all think we can protect them here from come-what-may. From an army of Sentinels, if it comes to that."

"I know." Jean said, tapping on her temple, "Telepath, remember?"

"Sorry. I'm just-"

"On edge? I'm glad you're not standing closer to me, Scott, I'll tell you that much."

"It's not that she's late. That contributes to it, but that's not all of it."

"You're afraid you'll fail them."

"Yes." Scott said.

"Given that I'm still the lone team leader, don't you think I should be worrying about it?"

"I'm still your advisor, you know." Scott said with a smile.

"Yeah, I saw how you _advised_ in the last curbstomp."

Scott laughed. Their last exercise, the night prior, had been an invention of Scott's: a curbstomp exercise. Divided evenly, or united against a common foe, teams of five would face each other, with the goal being to immobilize the other team completely. Scott and Jean had been the leaders of the teams, naturally; as both were the leaders of the X-Men. The curbstomp had started off as a typical session, Scott and Jean watching from the sidelines, directing their teams. But, when the numbers of those standing had ended up an uneven 2-to-4 six, Scott had changed the game and made himself the surprise boss, but the only way to get to him, was through Jean. The six had done a rather average job of it, and the only remaining person, Tabitha by some twist of fate, had failed to take him down.

A very sore Bobby Drake had called cheat. The Professor, however, had found Scott's performance commendable, as he had "introduced a realistic twist into the situation."

"It's not over, you know that, right?" Jean said, smirking, "When you least expect it, I'm gonna-"

The shrill creaking of the mansion's outer gates caught Scott's absolute attention. Jean looked down at her cup of hot chocolate. There was a part of her, a part that she didn't like very much, that hated this. The way his eyebrows twitched up at the prospect, a tic he wasn't aware of. The way his emotions just leapt to his face. Worry. Concern. Curiosity. Elation. The way he tugged at the hem of his coat as the car pulled into the garage. Making short work of the drink in his hands, a nervous habit.

She saw in intimate detail his small reactions that not too long ago would happen because of herself. It mixed with the slight guilt she felt because of the duality inside her; the mature one, the friend, knew that this was where things were at. The other one, the one that had turned to Sean Cassidy, didn't know what to think.

Jean took a deep breath and gently took the mug from his hand as she heard the garage door begin its groaning ascent.

"I'll go back inside." She said.

"Thanks for the hot chocolate." Scott said with a warm smile.

Jean went in without a word.

Rogue thanked every god that she knew there was for Scott's choice of fabric. She could barely feel the cold where her coat covered her body, which was most of it. Stray, white strands stuck out of the lifted hood as she walked. Her leather gloves, however, were not doing as much as they were supposed to in order to keep her hands warm. With her duffel bag slung over her shoulder, she stomped through the ankle-high snow towards the light, the entrance of the mansion.

Rogue found herself fascinated with the feeling inside her that she was coming home. This was something she was still not used to, and it was not in the sense that the mansion was home in her mind. It was that it was home in _her_ mind, not in the mind of an echo.

Upon seeing him, her steps faltered. It hadn't been that long, yes, barely a week and one very strange encounter. But still, the sight of him, standing there with his hands in his coat's pockets, made something swell up inside her. She felt a scream rise to her throat. She wanted to scream it out loud, loud enough to put that Irishman to shame. Shout it from the rooftops, but for now, as she went up the steps and stood within two feet of him, she felt that something far less would do.

"Hey." Scott said, "That didn't take long. I hope that's a good thing?"

Rogue nodded. Tongue-tied, she stared at him. She felt like a little girl again in that moment, back in Caldecott and talking to the boy Mystique had told her not to talk to. He wouldn't be interested in her, anyway. All the boys were after one thing. Rogue knew she didn't have it, and wouldn't have the other thing, ever.

He didn't care about any of that, she knew. A pleasant after-echo of a few little touches since let her know that what she had was enough.

"Did you find you were looking for?" Scott asked.

Shyness. Another new feeling. Warm and exciting, yet detached and lonely.

She took a deep breath.

Rogue extended her hand. Scott raised an eyebrow. Then, he took it.

"Hi." Rogue said, "Mah name is Anna Marie."

With a gentle smile, he said:

"Hello, Anna Marie. I'm Scott Summers." He stepped forward and pulled her in, held her tightly. Rogue felt tears in her eyes, warm in the biting cold air. Scott's gloved hand ran through her hair, and he whispered to her two words she wouldn't have dared to hope to hear, once upon a time: "Welcome home."


End file.
